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Collierville School Board Business Meeting – May 13, 2014 – Citizen’s Report

May 13

Posted by E2Dutch in Rave, Reality Check | No Comments

Regular business meeting of the Collierville School Board. All of the board present, as well as a significant contingent of school and central office staff. Bill Dries from the Daily News was also present (albeit a few minutes late…).

At the start of the meeting, there were two public comments. The first was from a representative from Cigna, who wanted to relate some additional points of information about their response to the RFP. The second comment was from the CEO of Healthchoice, which is an organization that is affiliated with Methodist Health Care managed care, as far as I understood. His comments were in support of Cigna as a health insurance provider.

Following the moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance, Beth Robbins presented the Collierville Highschool Academic Allstars, as recognized by the Commercial Appeal. She also noted that of the 11 overall scholars designated by the CA from the are, 3 are from Collierville High. Mr Hansen congratulated the students, and commended them on being a great example of what Collierville Schools exemplify.

The report from the chairman touched briefly on the interlocal agreements still in progress (with some recent “hiccups”) among the municipalities. Germantown will be voting on a budget on 5/14, which will hopefully include the shared services. Mr Hansen also mentioned the almost completed central office facility, which will be a great place to showcase Collierville Schools. The move-in date is Monday May 19th.

The Superintendent’s report had four quick items:

  • The personnel plan for Collierville Schools has been approved by the State Board of Education
  • The County Commission has approved $1M for capital projects in Collierville, which will primarily be directed to a new roof at Collierville High
  • Job offers for teachers and administrators were delivered this past week
  • Regular meetings have started with SCS around the transition of buildings and personnel over the next few weeks

Mr Simpson, the consultant had an update with more detail about the finishing touches for the central office. Additional updates covered the contracts for services that the school district is still working on, including two later on in the agenda, and the transportation contract as well as others for safety equipment and insurance. Mr Vaughan asked if the bus radius is being changed, to which Mr Simpson replied that in order to most efficiently and economically start services in August, no changes from the current transportation plan were being made. This includes bell times.

The next agenda item was added at the last minute: a presentation on the benefits plans recommended to the board, based on the RFP process that was followed. Karen Naccarato explained the process followed, which included representatives from the municipalities to set out the objectives and perform the RFP process. For health benefits, the options considered were the state plan, full insurance and self insurance. 10 companies provided proposals.

The recommended option is from Aetna, as it came out with the best match of the required features and the cost. Its proposal also will provide for various allowances to allow for change management to ensure a smooth transition. A significant change from the current provider (Cigna, the runner up) is that Aetna offers two network choices: Methodist plus St Francis or Baptist plus St Francis. The employees will have that choice, with the Baptist plan being slightly lower cost.

There was significant discussion around this recommendation, including concern with changing insurance administrators from the current provider, whether this plan provides for the state-mandated level of services, etc. While the employer/employee split is improving from 63/37 to 66/34, it appears the monthly cost will go up slightly for employees. Mr Hansen pointed out that his employer (FedEx) has had major overhaul in its health insurance plans and associated cost, primarily due to the Affordable Care Act, and every employer is facing similar issues.

The board is not yet ready to vote on this, and a vote is not needed until the 23rd of May, so a special called meeting was decided on for one week from today. Mr Vaughan will be unable to attend, but expects consensus among the board.

Metlife Dental, Davis Vision and for basic life insurance, Metlife, are recommended. That maintains the current providers for all those.

Up next, the board considered the policies that were presented three weeks ago at the working session. Mr Aitken pointed out some minor changes that were made, mostly for grammatical reasons. Additionally, the facility use policy was updated to allow use of kitchens, provided under appropriate supervision. The policy on naming of schools and school real estate was simplified based on feedback from the working session. The policy on athletic participation insurance was restated to allow parents to provide for their own insurance or accept the risks of not having insurance if they so choose.

The 63 policies were approved.

Two new policies were presented: first, vacation and holidays, which mostly stipulates the non-teaching personnel policies around vacation and holidays. A key improvement over current policy is to reduce the wait time for the commencement of benefits from 1 year to 6 months. Also, those employed by SCS during the current school year are not considered new employees under this policy, and will thus enjoy the vacation amounts commensurate with their time at SCS. The other new policy is around On-the-job injuries.

Finally, two contracts were up for review and approval:

Both custodial services and maintenance services are recommended to be provided by the current custodial services provider, GCA. For maintenance, SCS currently uses in-house personnel, which may not be economical for a small district. Collierville is proposing to work together with Germantown specifically on this, and the two municipalities will share the use of 11 skilled maintenance personnel, such as plumbers, HVAC technicians, locksmiths, etc. Germantown is expected to vote on, and approve, this arrangement in their meeting on May 14. These both passed.

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Collierville joint School Board and Board of Mayor and Aldermen budget working session – May 6, 2014 – Citizen’s Report

May 6

Posted by E2Dutch in Rave, Reality Check | No Comments

On May 6, the Collierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA) and the Collierville School Board held a joint working session to review the draft budget for the 2014-2015 school year. The Collierville Schools budget is not finalized yet, but is very close to being finished. The BMA needs the preliminary numbers for its budgeting purposes by next week. This post summarizes my observations from today’s meeting, and any editorial comments are clearly identifiable as such below.

The full BMA and School Boards were present, as well as the town administrator, and most of the Collierville Schools senior office staff. The audience was very light.

For most of the meeting, Superintendent Aitken walked the board through the numbers that make up the detailed budget. The budget balances revenues and expenses at this time. The expense side of the budget is based on the projected enrollment number of 7900 students. The revenue side is based on an estimate of 7600 students, which is the number of students in Collierville schools as of April. This is the number the state board has decided to use as the basis for allocation of funds. Per state law, the actual payments out of the county tax and state education funds will be based on actual enrollment numbers, as determined during the school year. In June following the school year, a true up payment will be made as appropriate to account for the difference. It should be noted that in the case where the actual enrollment actually is realized, that June payment could be around $2M at the end of next school year.

There are a few items still under negotiation with vendors, but reasonable estimates have been included in the budget.

The projected total cost for the 2014-2015 school year is $60,695,411. Revenues match this number for a balanced budget. Mr Aitken pointed out that there are approximately $800-900,000 in savings realized through the use of shared services by the participating municipalities. In the current setup, Collierville is responsible for approximately 26% of shared services cost, when allocated on a per-student basis among 6 municipalities. For comparison, Germantown’s share is 19%. Should Germantown opt out of some or all shared services, those costs will then be spread among the participating school districts.

Into budget detail…

The largest portion of revenues is state funding. Second is county funding. The municipal contribution is currently set at the state mandated formula relating to the property taxes, but is being funded through the local option sales tax.

On the expense side, by far the largest portion is teacher salaries and related general education expenses. The projection is that there will be 395 general education teachers, which is an increase of approximately 13 teachers over current staffing levels. Most of the increase in teachers will go to CHS and SFMS. In the health insurance projection, the current district-employee ratio used is 66-34%. It is estimated that 80% of eligible personnel will actually enroll in the health care plan.

Another area with significant personnel numbers is special education. Special education staffing will follow current numbers, which are generally where legacy SCS was. It should be noted that by law the ‘maintenance of effort’ rules around special education are based on the first year of operations, whereas the overall maintenance of effort will be based on numbers after three years of operation. Maintenance of effort refers to the rules around towns that fund school districts not being allowed to reduce their funding levels for the schools unless there is a significant reduction in enrollment.

In reference to budget line items around instructional equipment, the question was asked if measures are being taken to ensure current school inventories will not change after the end of the school year. The settlement agreement stipulates that everything in the schools as of the time of the agreement will stay with the schools. Mr Aitken assured the boards that this is being watched closely. The superintendents in the county (including SCS’ Hopson) are discussing this in a meeting this week. Inventory documentation exists and school administration is keeping an eye on it.

Other notable budgeting items:

  • Health rooms will see a nurse at each school, and a medical records clerk at each school.
  • There will be a full-time librarian at each school.
  • Librarian assistants and cafeteria monitors will return to the schools.
  • Each school will have a plant manager again.
  • Special Education clerical staff will remain at each school (these are being cut at SCS).
  • Janitorial Services will continue to be outsourced as per the legacy SCS model.
  • Transportation will be outsourced, because of the inability to start an in-house system in the time allowed and funding available.
  • Career and Technical education will be a shared service provided by Arlington under contract.
  • Curriculum Technology Trainers (CTT) will be assigned two schools each. There will also be 6 tech support resources for the district.
  • After three years, the school district, by state law, must have built a reserve fund equaling 3% of its annual operating expenses.
  • No major capital items are included in the budget for this year.
  • Collierville Schools will be awaiting the results of discussions at the county level around some overdue maintenance items at some of the school buildings.
  • In the budget is a line item for $500,000 to be paid to SCS as part of the settlement agreement for the next 12 years.

Throughout the presentation, there were clarifying questions asked by various board members. My comments above generally include the explanations given.

At the end of the meeting, Vice Mayor Maureen Fraser asked about enrollment confirmation letters, and was told that the last of those should have gone out today. Generally speaking, all requests had been honored. Another question by Ms Fraser was about school start times. After remarking that this would depend on the arrangement with the transportation company, Mr Aitken also clarified that while the aspirational goals might be to go to two start times, for practical and budgetary reasons, it looks like the district will remain at three start times at least this coming year. A change in start times would seem likely after a few years, but not right now.

In conclusion, Mr Aitken pointed out that the main objectives were to restore services and service levels to the legacy SCS levels, at the least. Having shared services is a key element in being able to spend more of the district’s money in the classrooms.

 

Teacher hiring:

After the meeting, in a conversation with Mr Aitken, he indicated that teacher employment offers should be going out this week. There is no requirement of currently having tenure to be eligible to be hired for next school year right now. This is good news for all those teachers eager for news about their continued employment in their municipal schools!

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